Clouds over California by Karyn Parsons

Author:Karyn Parsons [PARSONS, KARYN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2023-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

Why a skirt?” Naomi cannot stop laughing. She turns back to the mirror. Black streaks roll down her cheeks. “Oh shoot, Uncle Coop! See what you made me do!”

Dad’s legs are neon white. I don’t think he’s worn shorts since he was seven.

“It’s not a skirt,” he insists, inspecting the hem of his costume. Mom and Dad are going to a Halloween party. It’s the first time in ages that the two of them have gone out together. And I haven’t heard them fighting lately. Maybe things are better. Maybe she’s stopped seeing Clarence.

“Your legs!” Naomi says. She hovers in front of a small mirror and tries again to apply her eyeliner, but she’s laughing so hard the black tears keep coming.

“Oh, cut it out. They’re not that bad,” he says. “I’m Julius Caesar.”

“Hey! We should go together. I’m Cleopatra!” she says.

I hadn’t planned on trick-or-treating at all. For the first time ever, I don’t have anyone to go with. I tried Jennifer again, but she never called me back. Naomi has Halloween plans of her own though, and that means I have to tag along, like it or not.

Upstairs, Mom is on a call.

“Oh… that’s perfect,” she says into the receiver, smiling as she adjusts her pixie wig and velvet ears. She catches a glimpse of me in the doorway and hurries off the phone. “Okay. That’d be great. Thank you. Bye.”

She hangs up and turns to me.

“Who was tha—?” I start, but she quickly cuts me off.

“You need to get ready, Stevie! Unless you’re going without a costume?”

I snatch the Ava from its head and start shoving my hair under it.

“Mom, in your red maxi and your long satin gloves, I could go as Hedy Lamarr!” Without a wig cap and box of bobby pins holding my hair down, the wig keeps fighting me back. I cannot get it to stay down.

“And have you drag the hem all across Santa Monica?” She doesn’t even look up from drawing spiky whiskers across her cheeks.

“We could pin it up!” I insist. But she isn’t going for any of it.

“Don’t worry, cuz. I got you!” Naomi comes in and sneaks a couple of things from my dad’s closet while Mom is caught up painting her cat face.

Naomi drags me to her room. “Shake those pants off.” She helps me slip into a humongous pair of men’s trousers and cinches the belt tight. My arms swim down the sleeves of an ugly plaid blazer that I have never seen my dad wear. This couldn’t possibly be his. Where did she find this?

“Uhhh, what are you dressing me as?”

“Just wait. You’re gonna love it!”

Next she goes to town on my makeup but won’t let me look.

She grabs the afro pick from her dresser and pulls my afro out big and wide.

“Hey! You’re making it too big. Pat it so it’s not messy,” I say.

“Stop fussing!” she says as she plops a dusty old fedora with a feather tucked in the ribbon on the top.

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